I.
I was watching
as the wolves split open the scar
across your neck, and ripped out the stitches that held your sternum
together. The blood flooded over
your breasts and pooled in small lakes in the crestfallen
snow. I moved closer to the car,
smashed and
tangled amongst the fractured winter tree,
to light a cigarette in the effigy burning soft
dirges against the pale sun. You gurgled
a breath. Your lungs and heart beat against the exposed
ribcage as the beasts ripped away layers
of muscle and sought
marrow with their gnashing teeth.
I would move closer. I would
lift your head and pour smoke into your mouth
as though you were drowning.
I would note that,
after all,
there was no contrast between the crimson and the lily
white.
II.
We moved into your parents’ cottage on the
Pacific that April. You
would lay out in the yard as I mowed the
lawn and then I would join you with
a glass of lemonade.
The wind blew through the fir trees and, at your
whispered
command, I prepared the soil. I opened up
your forearm with the kitchen
knife. Split the veins and
butterflied the vascular
tissue. Stopped at your
shudder. The poppy seeds scattered into
you and slid between the radius and
the ulna, taking root. I sat there, watching, so they
grew up your
shoulder, blooming white across your breastbone
and into your chest cavity. Opened the
seam in your esophagus and brocaded your
neck with frills. Through the
summer I tended to
you; shearing away the raw flesh and
opening your abdomen to let the garden breathe. Every
morning I cut the flowers
away from your cheeks to look
into your eyes, to prepare a
bouquet for that evening’s meal.
III.
Escher was always my favorite you
whispered here, whispered a thousand times
before as we lay awake at 2 A.M.
Your back twisted and the spine snapped
as I pressed you flat up against
the museum wall,
pulled your arms up over your head
to keep you from fighting back.
I could feel the gathering footsteps
seeking your exposed navel, noting the outline
of your bra. I followed the
railway spikes through your palms,
there between the static art
while you cringed and gulped beneath me.
And you opened your mouth
hungrily, letting me
slide my tongue into you
into you
into
you.
Let’s say
I came home and found the
lights off, found
the door cracked open, found myself
taking in the whole
scene, your limp
body on the bed, the bottle of
pills, and I shut the door behind
me and started
the car back up. I went out for a burger and
shake, stopped at the
gas station on the corner for a
pack of cigarettes.
Let’s say instead that
you remembered your mother
had been addicted to painkillers your entire
life. The neighbor called me
at my office
-no- I had
come home from work early that
day, and this time, I still had a
couple in the pack. So that’s how the paramedics found
me, smoking one on the porch, because
you had placed the pistol in
your mouth and written the biography
of our love all over the bathroom
wall.
Let’s say this time I called 911
and you were taken to the
hospital. The baby
didn’t make it, and it was the reason
all along. I knew because you’d told
me. Or there wasn’t a
baby at all, and that had been the reason instead.
Whichever; either way I held
your hand as the
sun came up.
Let’s say anything
besides that I came home, and you
had made lasagna again, and we
watched gameshows
until we couldn’t keep
our eyes open anymore.
Every day is a conclusion
lately.
I scrub myself raw in the pyre, I march
down
the street with a head in my
hands
dripping blood victoriously. The
curtain
shuts off the sound, floods my nose,
gags
me and cuts off my fingers at the second
knuckle.
Yet, there are moth-holes in the
obsidian
screen. The audience fleshes out the air
and
struggles to claw my throat while I drown under
their
passions. Every morning I wake up to the second act; the
digital
flash that carves red shadows into the wall,
improving
my pallor as I sleep through the insomnia.
I.
I was staring out the
window when the crimson shots pierced
the horizon
left sodden streaks
through my hair
you were screaming through a bloodbath in the next
room
and even after I
burned him with a cigarette
27 times
and crushed his elbow with a
hammer the
man beside me claimed the
sky was simply the purest azure he’d
ever seen
II.
The sun was bleeding
pouring down lighter fluid that burned through pastures
through breezes leaving rustling leaves rustling in the wind
holding open rifts in the sky where you
and I saw the clouds move to
sneak glances through the holes
in Orion’s belt
and listened to the ocean’s
last rasping breaths as you
III.
handed me the knife
IV.
I knew you wouldn’t cover your eyes or
drown out the sobbing
with the year old earmuffs
first the bloodsplatter
then the peeling of muscle
from muscle
from tendon and bone
the grass was scorched to brown
but the still beating
heart threw out the
summer’s first rain
A friend of mine, Adam Goes, wrote a book of poems called Songs From The Passenger Seat. I was actually the one responsible for getting it put out through WP. This is a fan page on Facebook for it. Show him some of the love you all have shown me on there. He’s quite good. Click the link above to “like” it, or click here.
Behind The Keys is a segment of WalleyedPress.com to give you, the audience, a further introduction to the many writers who have contributed to our back catalog.
Adam Quenton Goes
Adam Quenton Goes was a child of “Navy housing in San Diego”. “After a short summer playing backgammon with…
I’ve become quite fond of reading all the Behind The Keys segments, you should become quite fond too.
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